here are once again efforts to exclude the Green Party from the televised leaders' debates.
Here’s what you can do:
1. Visit http://demanddemocraticdebates.ca to sign our petition, donate, and more!
2. Vote in CBC’s poll on whether Elizabeth should be invited to the leaders’ debates
3. Email the consortium members CBC, CTV, Global, TVA and Radio Canada.
- CTV: programming@ctv.ca
- CBC: ombudsman@cbc.ca
- Global TV: viewercontact.globalnational@globaltv.com
- TVA: info@tva.ca
- Radio Canada: ombudsman@radio-canada.ca
4. Email the party leaders: Stephen Harper, Jack Layton, Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe. Tell them to press the networks to include Elizabeth May.
5. Visit the Facebook pages of the party leaders, and write on their walls that you want them to demand Elizabeth May be in the debates.
6. Tweet your outrage! Use the hashtag #EMayIn.
7. Post about this on Facebook.
8. Tell your friends and family!
What other people are saying:
"It's bad enough that the Greens got nearly a million votes last election yet got no seats. It's insane that they can't even get on TV. This is UTTERLY outrageous."
-Andrew Coyne, national editor of Maclean’s magazine, via twitter.
"It is a common sense proposition that anyone who received a million votes has a right to be heard… To exclude [May] is to invite yet another examination of why we as a society delegate to television networks the right to decide issues like this.”
-Elly Alboim, Associate Professor of Journalism and former Parliamentary Bureau Chief for CBC TV News
“It is time for the people of this country to stand up and let the media and the politicians know that an election is a time for people’s voices to be heard and Elizabeth May speaks for a lot of people in this country."
-Judy Rebick, Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University
“The decision by the broadcast consortium to exclude Green Party Leader Elizabeth May from the 2011 leaders' debate is mystifying. .. The broadcast consortium should first apologize to May and reverse its decision."
-Vancouver Sun Editorial, 30 Mar 2011
"Democracy demands that the media simply relay Parties positions without attempting to control the message. Excluding the leader of a party that garnered 1 out of every 15 votes in the 2008 federal election is just plain wrong”
-Cal Millar, President of Channel Zero.
